I watched the consistory this morning for only one reason. I wanted to see if my friend Steven Lopes would show up on the television. Sure enough, there he was seated right behind Cardinal Levada. Unfortunately, I have not found that he showed up on any of the news photes found on the web. A glimpse of him is seen on the left side of this Reuters picture.

He can be seen more clearly in this photo of him with Archbishop Levada and Pope Benedict XVI taken several months ago.

Of course, I always delight in his presence. It was a joy to have him as part of the liturgy this past Christmas. He is pictured on the left here along with myself and Deacon Ernie Perez. Steven will be honored this summer as a distinguished graduate of St. Edward School.

We have Rev. Patrick Collins here for our annual Lenten Parish Mission. He is a delightful speaker, and a musician too. It was a pretty busy day. I was a bit behind on my other Blog answering questins for parishioners. If you want to take a look at the questions and the answers they are here.

Rocco has an interesting article on the burning or buying of ashes for Ash Wednesday. We bought some last year because we had no idea if people would bring their palms back. This year we did not buy any as we had plenty of palms to burn. They smolder rather than burst into flame, he said. We had quite the opposite experience. The flames were huge, and it was good to have a screen to keep embers from blowing away. Also there was no need for paper or wood to start the fire. Cruz started the fire with a blow torch, so all we have is ashes from palm branches.